


thank you, soldier

by regrettably



Category: JJCC (Band)
Genre: M/M, badly written sappy shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 21:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13555716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regrettably/pseuds/regrettably
Summary: Daehwan finds out that he really doesn't need to worry about Chanyul enlisting.





	thank you, soldier

**Author's Note:**

> if you're sad think about how zica and yul have been best friends irl since they were teenagers, gives me the warm fuzzies every time 
> 
> (last fic guys, sorry it's basically word vomit)

“Are you sure that’s all you want?”

 

Chanyul hugs a plastic convenience store bag to his chest like it’s the most precious thing to exist ever.

 

“I’m sure.”  Chanyul smiles a little smile and peers down at his bag.

 

He looks even sharper than normal tonight, all nose and jaw backlit by neon signs advertising cigarettes and samgyetang, cheekbones shining wet with melted snowflakes.

 

Eddy says snow is the worst part about being in the army.  That when it snows they’ll spend hour after hour freezing their asses off scraping slush from pavement.  

 

Daehwan’s not sure how much shovelling he’ll have to do on a boat.  Chanyul, though… it’s hard to imagine him in his army greens heaving mounds of snow when right now he’s preoccupied with trying to catch flakes on his tongue.

 

If Daehwan could, he’d stay here and watch how Chanyul laughs every time a sliver of ice hits him on the tip of his nose and the way his breath swirls from his mouth through the frosted air all night long.  

 

But they don’t have that kind of time anymore.

 

“C’mon, it’s cold.”  Daehwan tugs on the sleeve of Chanyul’s coat, “Let’s go eat.”

 

Chanyul blinks white-tipped eyelashes until Daehwan pokes his plastic bag.  Chanyul’s whole face lights up, grin splitting his face ear to ear as he remembers what they went out for in the first place.

 

The dorm’s unusually quiet when they get in.  Eddy’s out with friends, Youngjin with his family.  They’re not really sure where Hadon’s gone, but he knows what tonight is and has never liked to thirdwheel.

 

Daehwan puts on old music, the eighties ballads they used to listen to as teenagers on discs borrowed from their parents, daydreaming about bright stage lights and screaming crowds between textbooks scattered on the floor of Daehwan’s childhood bedroom.

 

Chanyul rummages about in cupboards for a clean pot, cute in sweatpants and slippers and a baggy shirt rolled up around bony elbows, conspicuous in the beanie still pulled down over his ears.

 

“You ever going to take that off?”  Daehwan nods at Chanyul’s hat and Chanyul shakes his head.

 

“No.  It looks dumb.”

 

“You can’t look dumb.”  Daehwan smiles as he searches for chopsticks of relatively similar lengths, “Show me?  Please?”

 

“Nuh-uh.  I’m not taking it off until I have to leave.”

 

“You’re going to wear it to bed, then?”

 

Chanyul nods, focused on putting items from his bag into the pot on the stove.  “Yes.”

 

“And in the shower?”

 

“...fine.”  Chanyul scrunches his eyes shut and the hat comes off in a reluctant tug, accented by the crackle of static from fleece rubbing against hair.

 

For a moment, Daehwan can’t say anything.  He’s got no words that he’s willing to speak for how Chanyul looks with his hair shorn nearly down to his skull.

 

“I told you it looks dumb!” Chanyul still won’t look at him, “Just say it.”

 

That’s not it.  

 

It’s more that with no bangs to obscure his face Chanyul somehow seems young.  So young.  Young enough to remind Daehwan of the kid with the long face in the other homeroom class that wanted to hear him sing in a noraebang, the kid that everyone made fun of in school because everything he did was always a little strange, the same kid that smiled the biggest smile Daehwan had ever seen when he offered to teach him how to sing like he does.

 

“It doesn’t.  You look better than I will, anyways.”  Daehwan reaches out, ruffles a hand through the stubble on Chanyul’s head.

 

Chanyul gives him a look. “Stop, you’re gonna make me overcook the noodles.  Go sit.”

 

Daehwan does, crosslegged on the floor to best absorb heat from the ondol.  Chanyul pads over with a big pot, dishes out two bowls of steaming ramyeon.  It’s simple; just spicy instant noodles with egg and processed cheese.  Still smells really good, even if it seems wrong.

 

“Is this really all you want?”  Daehwan asks as he accepts his bowl, “For our last night…?”

 

“Yes?” Chanyul’s already slurping noodles. “I like ramyeon.  I like you.”

 

“I know.  I just thought you’d want… something more… special?”   
  


Chanyul shrugs.  “This is special.  We were eating ramyeon the first time we… we… uhm...”

 

That was a day very much like today.

 

It was snowy and stupid cold and Chanyul had wanted ramyeon and Daehwan had just been talked into joining ATO.  It hadn’t been hard to get him to agree, really.  He’d have done anything to get back to Chanyul.

 

“I know.”

 

Daehwan could never forget that.

 

Chanyul’s face flushed bright pink as he’d suddenly put down his bowl and said that he couldn’t do this for a single day longer, that he’d loved him since high school and now that they were living together Chanyul couldn’t keep lying to him.  Those nervous ashamed tears welling up in the prettiest eyes as his voice shook and stuttered until Daehwan had leaned across the table and kissed his perfect lips and told him he’d been in love with him just as long, maybe longer.

 

Chanyul had tasted like spicy ramyeon, like garlic and beef and gochujang and  _ Chanyul _ .  Daehwan had thought he’d tasted like the best thing in the entire world.

 

“So this is special.”  Chanyul says it like he really thinks it is.

 

“Yeah.”  It’s also special to Daehwan.  It is.  But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.  It wasn’t supposed to end like this.  Not just for him, for Chanyul too.

 

He’d promised Chanyul so much.

 

When Chanyul had called him in university, asked Daehwan if he thought he could be a good model, Daehwan said he should go for it.  When he’d called again, months later, and asked if Daehwan thought he could be an idol because he’s been offered a spot and singing had always been his dream,  _ their  _ dream, Daehwan said of course he could.  Later, when Chanyul said there was a chance for Daehwan to be in an idol group, his idol group, and was nearly begging him to leave everything behind and come join him, Daehwan did it without a second thought.  

 

And when ATO folded and they signed new contracts, Daehwan was the one who said that it would all be okay, that things would be better this time.

 

And Chanyul believed him every time.  That things could and would get better for them.

 

But things didn’t.  

 

If they had, Daehwan and Chanyul wouldn’t be spending the last night they get together before enlisting eating ramyeon on the floor of the cramped apartment that smells like male bodies and stale alcohol and dirty laundry because they’ve shared it with every other guy in JJCC for much too long and not long enough.

 

Chanyul shouldn’t be happy with just this.

 

The smell of ramyeon suddenly makes Daehwan’s stomach churn.  He sets his bowl down and the clink of ceramic connecting with floor startles Chanyul’s attention away from his noodles.

 

“E-everything okay?” He asks, like eating cheap food and sitting on the ground for warmth is the nicest life can get and he can’t imagine what could possibly be wrong.  Daehwan had promised himself that he wouldn’t let things get sad, not tonight, but he can’t help it.  That’s too much.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“For what?”

 

Daehwan’s voice is deep and solemn to Chanyul’s high and soft.  “You… you deserved better than this.”

 

Chanyul’s quiet for a long while.  He furrows his eyebrows and his bottom lip sticks out in a pout and he taps his chopsticks on the rim of his bowl in an unsteady non-rhythm until he comes to a conclusion.

 

“No.”  Chanyul says, certain.  “I’ve had a good time.”

 

“What?”

 

“Since we became idols.  I’ve had a good time.”

 

Daehwan stares.  “Chanyul… we never got to be real idols.”

 

Chanyul tilts his head, confused.

 

“Sure we did.  We wore expensive clothes.  We sang and danced on TV.  Girls gave us presents.  People cheered for us!”

 

Joonyoung says they have to be nice to Chanyul because he doesn’t understand things quite the right way.  Hadon says Chanyul doesn’t understand things quite the right way because he’s kind of dumb.  He laughs when he says that though, says Youngjin’s dumb too but they still like him.

 

Joonyoung and Hadon are both sort of right and sort of wrong.  

 

Chanyul’s just Chanyul.

 

Nearly every second of every day, that’s the reason why Daehwan’s stayed with him.  But there are times when even Daehwan finds him a little hard to deal with.

 

This is becoming one of those times.

 

“We couldn’t afford those clothes.  We can barely afford food.”  Daehwan motions at the ramyeon, “There were barely, like, ten fans most of the time.”

 

“So?”  Chanyul chews on his bottom lip, “We’ve been on TV!  And in magazines!  I had orange hair!  We were in photos with no shirts on!”

 

Daehwan almost smiles, remembers Chanyul with his downcast eyes, hiding from photographers behind arms crossed shy over his chest.   _ Go on, you look great. _

 

“Chanyul-”

 

“We met a famous basketball guy!  We wore suits!  I pet a horse!  We went to China and America and Malaysia and… and… and…  _ Japan _ !”   

 

Chanyul says Japan like it’s a whole world away instead of barely an hour in a plane.

 

“But we never-”

 

“And now we’re going to be soldiers for a bit…” Chanyul cuts him off, in his frustration he’s lost the Seoul dialect he worked so hard to learn, dropping vowels and slurring syllables together, “...and then we’re gonna go to America!  I don’t know what you’re so sorry about-”

 

“Wait, what?  America?”

 

There’s an exasperated huff, Chanyul looks from his noodles to Daehwan as if he doesn’t get why he’s wasting time that he could be using to eat talking about something so obvious.

 

“Yes?  We’re gonna see Sihoo-hyung and that big canyon and walk across that bridge that you said is gold but it’s actually red and listen to music in...  uhm, Nackville-”

 

“Nashville.”

 

“Nashville.”  Chanyul nods, “And eat waffles with chicken on them and really fat pizza and hot dogs at a baseball game and do all the other things you wanted to do too!”

 

“We are?”  Daehwan doesn’t believe it.  

 

He’s wanted to do those things since almost as far back as he can remember.  While Daehwan spent most of high school wanting to be somewhere else, Chanyul patiently listened to his dreams of seeing casinos shining with millions of lights and highways that stretch on for days and days and days and faces cut into the sides of mountains.  That was one of those things he never really understood.   _ Why would I ever want to go anywhere else?  I’ve got everything I want right here. _

 

Maybe Chanyul did understand after all.

 

“Yeah.  ‘Course!”  Chanyul gazes at his ramyeon, cradling the bowl between long fingers.

 

“And... is that what you want?”

 

Chanyul sucks up a big mouthful of noodles.

 

“Uh-huh.  Always just wanted to be with you.  I’ve been happy since we came here ‘cause I got to do all those things I said with you.” He swallows, loud, “So stop being sad… and stop being sorry!  Let’s go be soldiers and then be together again!”

 

Daehwan’s been proud of Chanyul, his Chanyul, his sweet simple Chanyul, for a lot of different reasons over the years.

 

But he doesn’t think he’s ever been more proud of him than he is just now.

 

“Hey, Kim Chanyul… thank you.” Daehwan shuffles up close to him on his knees, places a hand on Chanyul’s sharp jaw, “I love you, y’know that?”

 

Daehwan dips his head and kisses him.  His fingers curl into the places where Chanyul’s hair used to be, fingertips brushing against scalp instead, and Chanyul leans into him, thin lips warm and wet against Daehwan’s own.

 

Chanyul tastes just like the first time they kissed; like like spicy ramyeon, like garlic and beef and gochujang and  _ Chanyul _ . 

 

And Daehwan loves him even more than he did that day.

 

Because Chanyul’s going to do great in the army.  He did great in middle school.  He did great in high school.  In his own way, he did great in university and in ATO and in JJCC, no matter what anybody else thinks.

 

“I know.”  Chanyul murmurs when they pull apart, all breathless and pink, confused but pleased as he bumps his nose against the tattoo coiling around Daehwan’s wrist.  “Let me eat my noodles before they get soggy.”

 

And they’ll both do great when they finish their service.

 

Chanyul sips at broth and hums to himself like everything’s right in his world.

 

Daehwan grins and picks up his own bowl and they eat quietly, looking forward to that day two years from now when they’ll eat cheap noodles and smile about nothing in particular and be happy with each other again.

  
  
  
  
  
  


 

END


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